alt Hacker News> If Anthropic and OpenAI believed customers would actually pay the real cost of AI tokens, they wouldn't have to give away 20 to 40 times the amount of tokens to subscribers.
One logical gap in the SemiAnalysis 40x cost of tokens versus subscription: I don't know anybody actually maxing out their account limits.
Sure, if you're somehow always running stuff, you can max it out, but subscriptions like this allow people to max sometimes (or always), while others never come close to the max.
What is the average usage of subscribers? Only Anthropic and OpenAI know, as far as I can tell.
Replies
Also enterprises have to pay per-token.
Just to counterpoint the adjacent replier. I have claude, chatgpt, and gemini subs and rarely even use even close to 50%. I code c++ everyday. But im not full in on agentic workflows which is probably why. I mostly do fairly targeted things to my various code bases.
I max out Claude Code and Codex subs both every week without fail and I’m doing a lot of work but it’s not insane.
I'm of the opinion that the market will need to expand, horizontally. That's what's happening, with low-cost LLMs. I already know lots of "regular folks" that are totally hooked on LLMs (mostly ChatGPT, at the "regular mensch" level). They usually use the free tier, but a lot of them are doing the $20/month Pro tier.
If anyone is in my age group, they remember when ATMs were free. It was the "heroin dealer" business model. It worked out well (for the banks). The Chinese did it with manufacturing.
Getting people hooked on subsidized junk, is an age-old (and highly effective) business model.
Think of all the shops that will soon be composed of people that simply can't even get out of bed, if their LLM is not available. If the LLM dealer starts raising the price, there's no choice. I suspect many of the valuations are taking this into account.
> "Junk is the ideal product... the ultimate merchandise. No sales talk necessary. The client will crawl through a sewer and beg to buy."
-William Burroughs